


High Adventures with the Highchurches!

by Mister_Upside



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Children's Stories, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 02:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21008474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mister_Upside/pseuds/Mister_Upside
Summary: It's HIGH ADVENTURES with the HIGHCHURCH FAMILY! Join Merle, Mookie, and Mavis as they show you tips and tricks on how you can enjoy your own adventure and OH DEAR PAN, MERLE'S BEEN KIDNAPPED AGAIN!!!





	High Adventures with the Highchurches!

[ ](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/585637273563824354/632410484439515166/image0.png?width=419&height=559)

PAGE 1

Banner: Tadaa! Explosively dynamic late-90s/early-00s introduction to The Highchurch family – Merle, Mookie, and Mavis – who wave excitedly out at the reader! The family is dressed and ready for excitement: Merle in his standard outfit; Mookie and Mavis in variations of a safari-style outfit – Mavis’s outfit and accessories emphasizing her adventuring, Indiana Jones action focus; Mookie’s, more for research, book-reading, and scouting! Font and style is something out of a late-90s Highlights For Kids comic! Banner Title Text is bold and dynamic and explosively exciting! Labels identify the three Highchurch family members!

BANNER TITLE  
High Adventures with the Highchurches!

FIRST LABEL  
Mookie

SECOND LABEL  
Merle

THIRD LABEL  
Mavis

TEXT 1 - 2  
Written By: Tom Upside  
Art By: Lilachoodiee

Panel 1: Merle, Mookie, and Mavis slide into panel in dramatic fashion! Standing in the middle of a forest clearing, they’re dressed in their safari outfits from the banner, addressing the reader like they’re hosting a Discovery Channel show.

MERLE 1  
Welcome, young adventurers! I’m Merle!

MOOKIE  
I’m Mookie!

MAVIS  
And I’m Mavis!

MERLE 2: And we’re...

GROUP  
THE HIGHCHURCHES!

Panel 2: Focus on Merle, who gives the reader the run-down of what they can expect. 

MERLE 1  
Everyone wants to have their own adventure. 

MERLE 2  
Whether it’s raiding a forgotten dungeon, saving the planar-verse – 

MERLE 3  
– or just having a nice camping trip with your family.

Panel 3: Focus on Mookie and Mavis. Mookie address the reader with a punitive expression, indicating that adventuring isn’t an easy thing, and that they should really be paying attention – like a babysitter telling a kid not to get in trouble. Mavis, however, has a boastful and braggadocios expression on her face, like she’s showing off. 

MOOKIE  
But it’s not always as easy as it looks, especially for first-timers.

MAVIS 1  
So we’re here to teach you the tips, tricks, and tools of the trade – 

MAVIS 2  
– so you can have the best and safest adventure possible. 

Panel 4: Merle is giving the final run-down when a gigantic shadowy creature leaps out from a nearby bush and snatches him up in its maw!

MERLE1 (giving rundown)  
So be sure to take plenty of adventure notes, as we guide you through –

MERLE 2 (getting kidnapped)  
OH GOD!!!

Panel 5: They kids look on and yell out as the shadowy beast speeds off into the distance, Merle dangling in its maw and screaming out at his kids. We can’t tell what the creature is, but it’s clearly a two-legged non-humanoid creature. The scene is comical – only Merle could get kidnapped by a monster during his own survival show! Mookie and Mavis, for their part, look more exasperated than panicked.

MOOKIE & MAVIS  
NOT AGAIN!!!

PAGE 2

FULL PAGE: This is the PREPARE FOR YOUR ADVENTURE segment. Here we have an empty Adventurer’s Backpack (whether sitting on a bed or just depicted on an empty background) surrounded by various D&D tools and weapons and other nonsense items. There ten slots, identified by dotted lines, which the reader must “fill” with various items laying around the outside. The items range from the practical to the impractical to the silly – with some items from MBMBAM, Dust, Amnesty, Commitment, and Fur. Some of these items include:

PRACTICAL ITEMS: Torches, tinderbox, rope, shovel (maybe), rations, potions, map, compass (maybe), water skin, bedroll, cooking pan, Gnome Army Knife

IMPRACTICAL ITEMS (recommended, but not absolute): NARF Blaster, Fancy Specs, Complete Collection of [insert punny book name], curling iron, iPod Suffle, a stromboli, Uncle Oni, a copy of A Bee Movie, etc.

The chibi face of Mavis and Mookie address the reader in the run-down near the top of the page.

SEGMENT TITLE  
PREPARE FOR YOUR ADVENTURE

CHIBI-MOOKIE  
Uh oh! Our Dad’s been captured by a monster! It’s time to head out!

CHIBI-MAVIS  
Pack your adventure kit with what you’ll need for the journey! You only have ten slots, so pack wisely!

PAGE 3

Panel 1: The pair are marching through the woods – their backpacks full and faces focused on the task of finding their father. Both address the reader as they get ready to run through tips on how to survive a camping trip . . . 

MAVIS 1  
The rail has run cold! 

MOOKIE  
Looks like we’ll have to camp here and try again tomorrow!

MAVIS 2  
Here are some basic tips for making it through the night.

Panel 2: Mavis pulls aside a bush to reveal a small tribe of Brownies crouched with tiny spears and weapons, who were ready to ambush them had they not been caught.

MAVIS  
Be sure to check your area for signs of nearby animals of monsters.

Panel 3: Mookie hoists Mavis onto his shoulder so she can tie their food up on a tall branch (they’re dwarf children after all, so it’s probably not that high of a branch.)

MOOKIE  
Tie your supplies to a tall branch so animals can’t reach.

Panel 4: Mookie starts making a small campfire.

MAVIS  
Be sure to always have a small campfire going to keep warm and cook food.

Panel 5: Mavis, sitting on the ground, has Mookie treat her small finger wound with a few ginger drops of healing potion. Her face is cringing – healing magic clearly stings a bit.

MOOKIE  
Have plenty of healing potions handy. 

Panel 6: The pair are examining the corpse of a hideous tangle-monster – x-eyes indicating that it’s dead. The pair, wielding blood-stained weapons, are disheveled and sweaty, indicating that they were the ones who slayed it. Mavis is apprehensively reaching towards the monster with her sword, ready to do some Treasure Dissection, as Mookie stands back, completely grossed-out.

MAVIS  
Be sure to check all corpses for treasure.*

CAPTION  
* Note: All the best treasure is usually kept on the inside.

PAGE 4

Panel 1: The pair walk into a wooded clearing. Mavis points down at pair of tracks and drag marks in the ground through a clearing in the brush. Mookie stands beside her, ready to go!

MAVIS  
We’ve found the trail again!

MOOKIE  
Time to see where it leads!

Panel 2: The pair stand before a gigantic house made of candy and cookies – totally not a trap for kids at all (he says with great sarcasm!) A happy looking large woman in pink and frilly dress and tiara (a very Glenda look.)

NICE LADY 1  
Welcome, children! 

NICE LADY 2  
Come into the kitchen! Eat all the candy you want!

Panel 3: Mookie, taking action, casts a magical spell, which begins to undo the disguise of the Witch like a strong breeze blowing off a cheep paper mache costume.

MOOKIE 1  
No adult ever lets kids have this much candy! 

MOOKIE 2  
I cast "Detect Evil"!

NICE LADY  
BLARGH!

Panel 4: Nice Lady’s outfit and disguise is gone, and she is revealed to be a hideous, stubby, dwarfen Witch. The pair are ready to attack! Witch, her face sad and eyes all puppy-dog, gives a pitiable look as she explains that her ruse was never nefarious. The kids, their arms crossed, nod in contemplative sternness, absolutely convinced.

MOOKIE 1  
GASP! She's a witch!

WITCH  
But I just wanted to make a safe space for children to come and escape the stress of this madcap world.

MAVIS  
Oh, she's a good witch!

MOOKIE 2  
We don’t class-judge here!

Panel 5: The witch, now dressed in a very bad suit and tie, then reveals a large whiteboard, which outlines a VERY obvious pyramid scheme for selling laundry detergent! (Note: The flow-chart and “Pyramid of Profit” has the Fantasy Cosco logo at the top.) The kids jump immediately into action! 

WITCH  
Let me tell you all about a great money-making opportunity – 

MAVIS (interrupt)  
Oh no! It's a pyramid scheme! She's evil after all!

MOOKIE  
Roll for Initiative!

Panel 6: The pair sit triumphantly atop Witch and her now-destroyed presentation – Mavis talking to the reader. Witch seems less mortally wounded and more perturbed. 

MAVIS  
We beat the witch! Now she has to tell us what we want to know. That's how witches work!

WITCH  
No, it's not! I just want you kids to get off my lawn!

Panel 7: The witch points over to a deep and foreboding cave not even fifty yards away, with tracks clearly leading in.

WITCH  
I saw a monster drag a dwarf into that cave over there! 

Panel 8: The kids bound away towards the cave! Witch, getting to her feet, grumbles at their rudeness.

MAVIS  
Look! There’s the trail!

MOOKIE  
Let’s go!

WITCH (small text)  
Buncha brats!

CAPTION  
Turns out the witch had nothing to do with this after all. 

PAGE 5

FULL PAGE: This is the Maze section of the comic, where the reader has to draw a line leading from the start of the maze to the finish. The two icons of the kids are on one end; an icon for Merle bound and gagged is at the other. The pair have to get through a long and winding maze. Inside are dead-ends, traps, and other monsters. Included among the monsters are Ingrid Cold, who shrugs apologetically; an Abomination; the three bears from “TAZ: Fur,” and others. 

TEXT  
MAZE RAZE! 

TEXT 2  
Our Dad is somewhere in this cave! Help us navigate through to the end to where he’s being kept!

PAGE 6

Panel 1: The kids make it out of the maze and are in a large chamber. Mavis holds high her lantern, illuminating the shadows that hide the dread and doom that await them. Mookie crouches down and notices large feathers and broken eggs – clues for the monster they’ll have to fight – and has a large book open to consult.

MOOKIE 1  
Strange feathers. 

MOOKIE 2  
Large eggs. 

MOOKIE 3  
This means we’re either fighting a large chicken . . . 

MOOKIE 4  
Or a Basilisk!

Panel 2: This section is designed to look the pages in Mookie’s book that describe the difference between Basilisks and Chickens! Inside are two side-by-side comparison drawings of a chicken and a Basilisk, with lines pointing out their Defining Characteristics and describing the differences in their anatomy. Aside from having similar structure to a chicken, a Basilisk is far more HIDEOUS than a chicken could ever be – the comedy being that nobody could ever really mistake the two unless they were trying.

TEXT IN BOOK 1  
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

TEXT IN BOOK 2  
Here are how to tell the difference between a CHICKEN and a BASILISK

RIGHT IMAGE: CHICKEN

Defining Characteristics  
Beak: Beak  
Mouth: No fangs  
Body: Excessive Feathers  
Wings: Useless wings  
Tail: Chicken tail  
Eyes: Probably won’t turn you into stone, but probably shouldn’t look anyways  
Head: Brain (???)  
Underside: Chicken buns

LEFT IMAGE: BASILISK

Defining Characteristics  
Beak: Beak  
Mouth: Fangs  
Body: Some feathers  
Wings: Leather Wings  
Tail: Lizard Tail  
Eyes: Don’t look into these or you’ll turn into stone!  
Head: Mind like a fox  
Underside:Cinnamon buns

BOTTOM IMAGE: Merle has been transformed into stone – in a crouching-over position, chin in hand; his expression and stance indicating that he was not quite sure that he was looking a basilisk in the eyes when he was transformed. Mavis is frantically running around him and throwing potions on his while Mookie panic-reads his Big Book of Healing! All is comically frantic!

PAGE 7

Panel 1: ZOUNDS! The kids have ran afoul of a gigantic Basilisk! It rears down upon them – wings wide, mouth screaming, eyes glimmering with magic and menace. The kids have their weapons in front of them and braced for defense!

MOOKIE  
It’s a Basilisk!

MAVIS  
Look out!

BASILISK  
SKWAWK!

Panel 2: Mavis is parrying the Basilik’s claws while Mookie has his spell hands glowing. Mookie spies something shimmering in the distance in the background, next to the skeletal remains of a warrior – like a reflective surface that they can use to turn the tide of the battle in their favor! 

MAVIS  
Don’t look into its eyes or it’ll turn you to stone!

MOOKIE  
Perception Check!

Panel 3: Mookie leaps towards what looks like a shield with a mirror for a face, next to the skeletal remains of an adventurer (Maybe have a nod to another D&D podcast character, like Binwin Bronzebottom from Acquisitions Incorporated.) In the background, Mavis is battling back against the Basilisk as best as she can, her head tilted away so she can’t look into its eye; but is on the verge of losing the battle. 

MAVIS  
I can’t hold it off much longer!

BASILISK  
SKWA~K!

Panel 4: Mookie dashes in and holds the reflective shield in front of him and Mavis, saving her at the last minute. In the shield’s mirror, the Basilisk is astounded by its own reflection – captured by its own stone gaze; already beginning its transformation into a statue by its own curse!

BASILISK  
SKWA~!?

Panel 5: The Basilisk lands hard on the ground, fully transformed into stone!

SFX  
THUD

Panel 6: The Highchurch children, standing around the stone form of their Dad, celebrate their victory in defeating the Basilisk!

MOOKIE 1  
We defeated the Basilisk and saved our Dad!

MOOKIE 2  
Level up!

MAVIS  
Now we wait for the curse to wear off and our Dad to return to normal!

Panel 7: Same deal as previous panel. Mavis and Mookie look over the stone statue of Merle – Mookie has his hands on his hips while Mavis is stroking her chin – and coming to the realization that their Dad might not be reverting to normal.

CAPTION  
Two hours later . . . 

MOOKIE  
. . . 

MAVIS  
Any minute now . . . 

Panel 8: Small panel. Chibi versions of the children drag the statue form of Merle out – the statue tilted to make it slightly easier to move (but not that much easier.) Mavis pulling a long rope that’s tied around him, while Mookie pushes the statue from behind. The pair are straining hard the move the weight, sweat pouring from their grimacing and dour faces.

PAGE 8

Panel 1: Round-up page! Merle is giving the reader the run-down of the adventure and preparation. It’s a tight medium close-up of him, so we can’t really see the rest of his body aside from his upper torso. 

MERLE 1  
Boy, that was a close one! 

MERLE 2  
But thanks to Mookie and Mavis, the day was saved!

Panel 2: Mookie stands proudly next to a white board, which has crude child-like drawings of their adventures: stick-figure drawings of Mookie and Mavis following a weaving dotted line path through trees and a candy house to a giant cave entrance.

MOOKIE  
Because Mavis was so well-prepared, we were able to make it through the forest and track down where Dad was taken!

Panel 3: Mavis levels her pointer at a similar whiteboard, which has a child’s stick-figure rendition of the kid’s stand-off with the Witch and with the Basilisk – Mookie casting Detect Evil to dispel the Witch’s disguise, and Mookie finding and using the shield to cast the Basilisk’s reflection back at it; and, finally, the kids dancing around the defeated stone Basilisk. Key points, such as Mookie using perception to find the shield, and Mavis making sure not to not look the Basilisk in the eyes, are circled, and comments made to correlate to their awesomeness.

MAVIS  
And thanks to Mookie’s quick-thinking, we were able to outsmart the Witch and defeat the Basilisk!

Panel 4: Focus back on Merle – medium close-up as before, so we can’t see below the waist. 

MERLE 1  
So let that be a lesson, dear readers:

MERLE 2  
You take an ounce of preparedness and a pound of inventiveness –

MERLE 3  
– and you’ll have a recipe for a great adventure!

Panel 5: Same view as previous panel. Mavis and Mookie each take a side of Merle, and all side-hug and address the audience.

MERLE  
So from all of us here in the house of Highchurch . . . 

MERLE, MOOKIE, & MAVIS  
Keep your compass pointed northward, and aim for the stars!

Panel 6: We pull back and reveal that Merle is still stone from the waist down. He looks down in no small amount of agitation at his still-unhealed state. The two kids are aschen-faced – clearly embarrassed that their dad is so unlucky in adventure. 

MERLE 1 (small text)  
Someone call that priest back.

MERLE 2 (small text)  
I think we got hosed. 

CAPTION  
The End!

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This is a fan work of The Adventure Zone: Balance, in participation with The Adventure Bang fan group! All characters, unless otherwise noted, are owned by The McElroy Family. All celebrity voices were impersonated, and no celebrities were harmed (within reason.) Artists have permission to adapt this script into a proper Picture Book form, provided author credit is properly attributed to the author; for any sharing of the artwork used in this fic, please reach out to Lilachoodiee for permission.


End file.
